Note 21 — Front matter

For, strictly speaking, it is only to Thomas of Aquino that this theory can be attributed; but Thomas Aquinas was par excellence the creator of the scholastic theology. It is he who was sainted for his wisdom, who has been raised by the Popes to the rank of a fifth Teacher of the Church (Doctor ecclesiae), the only successor of Athanasius and Ambrose and Jerome and Augustine. How thoroughly he is alone responsible may be seen by comparing his dicta on this topic with those of his great master, Albert of Bollstädt (Albertus Magnus), who still stands fully on the ground of the canon Episcopi. These dicta of Thomas are scattered throughout his works, but were carefully gleaned by all the earlier writers on witchcraft, and may be found bodily in their pages; they cite him more than all other authorities together, save the Bible. Thus, in the midst of his discussion of impediments to matrimony (in his “Quodlibeta,” x., questio 10, “De maleficiatis”), he bursts out: “Of witchcraft, however, be it known: that certain have said that there is no such thing, and that this [idea] proceeded from infidelity, because they would have it that there are no demons, save by the imagination of men—inasmuch, that is, as men imagined them, and, terrified by that imagining, were distressed. But the Catholic faith teaches, both that there are demons and that by their doings they can distress men.” ... (“Fides autem catholica vult: et quod daemones sint et possint eorum operationibus laedere et impedire carnalem copulam.” I quote from the edition of Nuremberg, 1474.) Of the dogmas that cluster about the terrible word incubus,—not to be uttered without a blush or heard without a shudder,—let me not speak. His fellow-Dominicans followed him at once, and gradually brought the Church to their side, but not without opposition. The Franciscans, especially, long stood out. Their great summist, Astexanus de Ast, writing in 1317, will go no whit beyond the canon Episcopi. Even Alfonso de Spina, in 1459, refused to believe in the witch-flight; and men like Samuel de Cassinis and Franciscus à Victoria carried the Franciscan protest far into the sixteenth century. But this, of course, only intensified the Dominican championship of the dogma.